Neal Asher - Zero Point (Owner Trilogy 2)

He understood her reaction at once and knew that she was uttering such half-truths because he had infringed on her territory, her expertise. Even in her computer as she tried to map what was happening to him, she had labelled the partitions. Therefore it was so childish of her to react in this way. He paused in that train of thought, and realized that he had sounded bombastic, pompous and patronizing. He understood that if he clearly stated his thoughts to anyone now, he would always sound that way, while much of what they said to him would seem like the wittering of children.

Re-establish humanity . . .

‘Yeah, I guess so, but it’s much easier to use computer analogies’ – he smiled ruefully at her – ‘especially after someone started sticking computer processors in my head.’

‘Never by choice,’ she said crossly.

‘Ah, choice,’ he said, humanity re-established. ‘Anyway, those bits of my mind that were damaged eventually healed.’ He studied her carefully, deciding it would be best for her to see it for herself rather than have him lecture her. ‘You said the bio-interface in my skull would grow according to demand, and that those bits of my mind governing my senses, the processing of certain kinds of information like mathematics, spatial ability, even aesthetics if there is such a part, were internalized, they had no reference frame . . .’

He saw her expression, blank at first, then frown lines appearing on her forehead as she realized she had something to think about here, rather than just absorb.

‘Without any reference frame, without connections to the other parts of your mind, the bio-interface wouldn’t have known whether or not there was demand,’ she said. ‘It would have had two options. It could simply stop growing its neural net or have it keep on growing.’

‘It kept growing.’ He stabbed a finger towards the clean-room door. ‘And there was room for it.’

‘But that’s . . . separate . . .’

He nodded once, waiting for her to catch up – and she did.

‘Of course, it continued to grow physically in your skull but informationally in your . . . spares.’

‘My vision is a prime example of what’s happened inside this body,’ he said. ‘The net has grown into my optic nerve and done a lot in my visual cortex. I can see into infra-red now, and a little into ultraviolet – though I think that’s the full physical extent available to me. I’m also no longer using the usual mental shorthand for anything I see.’

‘You’re processing everything, every detail?’

‘Different shorthand – using up a few more pages.’

‘Omniscience?’ Hannah asked, opening a container down beside his bed and taking out a standard undersuit for space apparel.

‘Hardly.’

Swinging his legs off the surgical table was not quite so difficult as sitting upright had been, but still he felt exhausted after the effort. He felt disconnected too, but it was the familiar inertia experienced after a long deep sleep. An urgency in him was growing and his focus kept drifting away from this laboratory, out towards the smelting plant and the cinnabar asteroid, to the vortex generator and to the eight proctors now ranged all the way round it like priests guarding some temple relic.

‘ We felt you ,’ said the proctor named Judd. ‘ Your orders? ’

‘ Unchanged by full consciousness ,’ Saul replied mentally. ‘ You have done well .’

‘ There are inefficiencies ,’ said the proctor Paul, who was currently with another proctor called David in the Arboretum cylinder world.

‘ If you had taken full charge ,’ Saul informed the android, ‘ station personnel would have rebelled, creating greater inefficiencies. ’

‘ I understand. ’

‘ Yes, of course you do. ’

These beings were something Saul needed to focus on closely when the opportunity arose, but right now he needed to get moving, to show himself to the people of this station, to optimize their chances of survival. Because, still, the approaching Scourge felt like a hot nail driving towards his eye.

‘I need to run some tests,’ said Hannah, frowning.

‘Only for your own reassurance,’ he answered. ‘I know my condition.’

‘Okay, so let me ask you again,’ she said. ‘How do you feel?’

He allowed the sensation of pain for a second, then quickly shut that down. ‘Like I was shot three times and then operated on. Like my head has been opened up and most of the contents scooped out, and like I’ve been flat on my back for several months.’

‘Then precisely as you should feel.’ Hannah passed him the undersuit, then stooped down again to the container to begin unpacking a VC suit. In merely storing that clothing here, she had obviously tried to remain optimistic. ‘Do you need any help?’

Despite her keeping garments ready for him, her tone told him she didn’t approve of him getting out of bed now without her checking him over. Perhaps she didn’t understand just how irrelevant his body felt to him. It was a much more complicated device than the robots he had earlier controlled and was now reassuming control of, but to him it was still merely a telefactored biological machine.

Considering that, his mind wandered off into some half-fugue state. There, in a strange way, he felt grateful for the shooting for, even though the manner of its occurrence was catastrophic, Saul had been pushed to what seemed like the next stage of his personal evolution: immortal mind – distributed, copied, safe, and his physical body just one of many he now controlled. In that moment he saw a possible future. As his abilities and the technologies he controlled increased, eventually there would come a time when he could grow replacement versions of himself, place within them the minds he required for any particular task and reabsorb that mind into his whole self after it completed that task.

Then reality came back. All that was still for the future, and he had to survive the now.

‘I can manage,’ he replied – the answer intended for her and for something inside him.

Slowly and methodically he eased himself from the bed, pulled the undersuit on over his scarred and tender flesh, then donned the vacuum combat suit, meticulously tightening its concertinaed seams. As he did this, he was also aware that when the alert had been transmitted to Hannah’s fone to bring her here, she had told Rhine what she was responding to. Rhine had quickly taken an almost childlike pleasure, which wasn’t without malice, in telling Le Roque. The technical director froze like a rabbit in the headlights before informing Langstrom, who had looked equally as frightened before getting himself under control and informing his staff. Thereafter the news had spread by fone and computer throughout the station.

‘How do I look?’ he eventually asked.

‘Like something hot from a Transylvanian tomb.’

‘Thank you for your support.’ He paused, now considering whether to answer her earlier question, and decided there would be no advantage in her not knowing.

‘You asked what woke me,’ he said.

‘Yes – you haven’t really explained that.’

‘It was a connection to the outside world, the conscious world, a connection running so deep it could not be ignored,’ he explained. ‘Even in the state I was in, I was still watching this station and still listening. I heard your recent tanglecom exchange with Varalia Delex.’

‘I don’t see any deep connection,’ said Hannah, puzzled.

‘Perhaps you did not notice her reaction when you told her my name. Maybe it’s understandable that you missed it. As for me, I hardly recognized her – since so few of the memories remain.’